Herman Melville citáty

strana 3

„Život je cesta, která vede domů.“

„Ať už je můj osud jakýkoliv, půjdu do něj se smíchem.“

„Nejpodivuhodnější věci bývají ty, o kterých se nedá mluvit; hluboko vryté vzpomínky nemají pomníků.“

„Přátelství na první pohled, stejně jako láska na první pohled, je prý jediná pravda.“

„Lepší spát se střízlivým kanibalem, než opilým křesťanem.“

„Podívejte se, jak elasticky naše předsudky rostou, když je jednou láska ohne.“

„Abychom byli pravými filosofy, snad si my smrtelníci nesmíme být vědomi toho, že tak žijeme či o něco takového usilujeme.“

„Velká kniha trvalé hodnoty nikdy nemůže být napsána o bleše, třeba se už mnoho lidí o to pokoušelo.“

“Who in the rainbow can draw the line where the violet tint ends and the orange tint begins? Distinctly we see the difference of the colors, but where exactly does the one first blendingly enter into the other? So with sanity and insanity.”

“Human madness is oftentimes a cunning and most feline thing. When you think it fled, it may have but become transfigured into some still subtler form.”

“Think not, is my eleventh commandment; and sleep when you can, is my twelfth.”

“It is the easiest thing in the world for a man to look as if he had a great secret in him.”

“Truth uncompromisingly told will always have its jagged edges.”

“Real strength never impairs beauty or harmony, but it often bestows it, and in everything imposingly beautiful, strength has much to do with the magic.”

“A noble craft, but somehow a most melancholy! All noble things are touched with that.”

“Our souls are like those orphans whose unwedded mothers die in bearing them: the secret of our paternity lies in their grave, and we must there to learn it.”

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme.”

“A sense of unspeakable security is in me this moment, on account of your having understood the book. I have written a wicked book, and feel spotless as the lamb.”

“Beneath those stars is a universe of gliding monsters.”

“See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.”

“Whatever my fate, I'll go to it laughing.”

“Give not thyself up, then, to fire, lest it invert thee, deaden thee, as for the time it did me. There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness.”

“Top-heavy was the ship as a dinnerless student with all Aristotle in his head.”

“I'll try a pagan friend, thought I, since Christian kindness has proved but hollow courtesy.”

“Truth is in things, and not in words.”

“Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay, but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none.”

“Life’s a voyage that’s homeward bound.”

“In one word, Queequeg, said I, rather digressively; hell is an idea first born on an undigested apple-dumpling; and since then perpetuated through the hereditary dyspepsias nurtured by Ramadans.”

“Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!”

“There is no folly of the beast of the earth which is not infinitely outdone by the madness of man.”

“In this world, shipmates, sin that pays its way can travel freely and without a passport; whereas Virtue, if a pauper, is stopped at all frontiers.”

“To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it.”

“Better sleep with a sober cannibal than a drunken Christian.”

“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.”

“Let faith oust fact; let fancy oust memory; I look deep down and do believe.”

“I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself”

“Book! You lie there; the fact is, you books must know your places. You'll do to give us the bare words and facts, but we come in to supply the thoughts.”